Day 16: My Mom's Costume Cupboard Part One

My mother was always creating, writing, performing, directing and managing skits, musicals and am dram: beginning in high school, throughout her days at Northwestern, and later at her church (those Ladies retreats seemed to be more about entertainment than contemplation) and the PTA. In Gardena she was a member of the Mothersingers, who later changed their name to the Holly Parkettes (we lived in the section of Gardena called Holly Park, and the Gardena Valley News once misprinted the name as the Holy Parakeets!) who I remember performed an operetta based on Jack and Jill.

She also helped direct and costume our various back yard and front room plays and performances and was good at whipping up Halloween costumes. For some reason we don't have a lot of photos of these ensembles; perhaps we were out of flash cubes at the crucial moment. I will post some of the existing photos later but here's one example:

Consequently, the hall cupboard is full of wigs and costume bits, and one night a few weeks ago my nephews and niece put on a fashion show.

Drake

Luke

Annabelle 

 

 

 

 

There are a few more combinations; part two to follow!

Day 15: Odds 'n' Ends from the Bug Room Part Two

Delving deeper into the box we find:

 

As I mentioned before, my father worked on Surveyor, the first aircraft to land on the moon, at Cape Kennedy in the summer of 1967. We spent the summer in an apartment in Merritt Island, Florida, and got to go swimming every day.

 

I had lots of photos of the moon's surface for Show and Tell; now I have these mementos.

I like the note about keeping this as a souvenir.

 Back on Earth, these two fancy, slightly dirty, plastic trays were found.

As well as this slightly weird wooden vessel:

What do we have here? A mint, never removed from its filthy hard plastic packaging Speidel TWIST-O-FLEX watchband!!

And a trio of paint chipped dirty birds! I think they're rather cute...

And a tiki dude with big teeth. He's mine now.

Whoops, there is another whole layer. I shall need to do a part 3... coming soon!

Day 14: The difference between my mom and dad

My mom was the eternal optimist. Hers is the bold writing on the top.

 My dad wrote the bit below, which is probably true. Still, I intend to look up some of those cards on eBay; you never know!

My mom's set of The Forsyte Saga books sat on the living room bookshelves for several decades. When I was around ten I defaced one of the titles; it was just too tempting!

I wasn't the only one in the family to deface book covers, though. One or both of my parents bought this book back when it was published. (And yes, they both voted for him!)

But around the time of Watergate, one of them got the red pen out:

Day 13: Odd 'n' Ends from the Bug Room Part One

Most family homes do not contain a "Bug room", but then again, most people do not have a father who is an insect collector.

When we had an extension put on our Gardena house, one tiny room that was added on was christened the Bug Room. It was full of cases of moths and mounting paraphernalia, but it also contained photos of the moon (taken by Surveyor, which my father worked on in the 60s), a hockey puck my dad had once caught, a giant yoyo I liked to play with, and my father's "Army Chapstick", a tube which still contained a bit of the stick dating from the early 50s.

The John Street house was much bigger, but didn't have a ready-made Bug Room, so my father utilized his own bedroom, the family room and the garage to work on his collection. Then, in the mid 80s, my sister's old bedroom became the new Bug Room.

I found this box when I was clearing out some stuff from there.

I first pulled out this lovely double photo frame. Wasn't sure it had ever been used.

Then an envelope labeled POGO MOBILE. My dad was a big Pogo fan and this hung from the ceiling in the bug room in Gardena for a while.

I think the Miracle Grip has long ago lost its grip. In fact it would be a miracle if it hadn't!

Most of the strings and wires are now missing but the pieces are in decent shape, for colored cardboard.



 And then I found... the hockey puck!! My dad used to demonstrate how, when he was at an LA Blades game, he just reached up and caught it in his bare hand.

Here's the yo-yo. It was the only yo-yo I could ever really do. It was kind of grubby but scrubbed up nicely.

What's in this box?

It's NOT a baby spoon...

It's a coffin!!!

I guess the rest were casualties...

A rusty barrette

My dad acquired a lot of letter openers, but this one can double as a lethal weapon!

 I am only halfway through the contents of the box, so there will be a part two... But just in case you're wondering, I never found the Army Chapstick...